Sample Sources
The sources below are those contained in our three curated collections—covering themes of Passover, Gender Roles, and Holocaust Resistance. They represent a fraction of the thousands of sources that will be available when the full site launches in 2024.
Avkat rokhel (Powder of the Merchant)
Hear, ye mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and ye strong foundations of the earth [see Micah 6:2] the lament of my beloved for his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill…
Declarations
Good words of the society of orphan girls of Izmir. In the Name of the Holy One, regulations and new ordinances established for the good governance and with worthy dissemination, with which we must…
Takkanah (Regulation)
In the name of God, in Pisa, the nineteenth of Shevat in the year 5373, February 2, 1613
Whereas the members of the mahamad [board of governors] and those accompanying them, including Ḥakham Azaria…
Letter to Netanel Trabotto: On Prayer
A letter from his honor R. Samuel Corcos, son of his honor R. Abraham, of blessed memory, a teacher in the holy community of Senigallia, which he sent to the…
Me-‘am lo‘ez (From a People of Foreign Tongue): On Fighting in Synagogue
Regarding those who fight one another inside the synagogue over the seats which each one has designated for himself, as when one is late in arriving and finds that another person is sitting in his…
Bet Yosef (The House of Joseph): On Marriage Contracts
Question: Reuven has a single daughter, soft and delicate, whom he married to Ḥanokh ben Judah with a dowry of a thousand sultanish. The bride is twelve years old, and in her father’s home she was…
Decree: On Bridal Processions
Text endorsing regulations concerning the playing of instrumental music and other entertainments, and the night-time bridal procession, drafted by me with the powerful endorsement of the sages—may…
Lev aryeh (Heart of a Lion)
In my opinion, there is no person in this world, whether he is a sage or a…
Shoshan yesod ha-‘olam (Lily of the Foundation of the World)
To remove a demon [sheyd] from the body of a man or woman, or anything into which a male or female demon has entered
Take an empty flask and a white waxen candle, and recite this adjuration in…
Compendium of Practical Kabbalah
This remarkable manuscript of practical kabbalah was written in Eastern Europe in the mid-eighteenth century; at the end of that century it was owned by the Radvil Hasidic dynasty. In contrast to…
Sefer ha-tsava’ah (Book of the Testament): Rituals on Dying and Mourning
My beloved wife Esther Sheindel, may you live long, since we, on account of our affection, once made a pact, as it were, that if one of us dies, the other should implore God’s mercy for the other to…
Hanhagot ve-tikunim (Conduct and Regulations)
These are the words of the covenant [see, e.g., Deuteronomy 28:69], the twenty-four enactments that the people of action of the holy society, which is in the holy city of Safed, may it be built and…